Today's communication and information environments create an immense amount of clutter for consumers, but a well crafted advertising campaign can differentiate an organization from its competitors. Persuasion in Advertising is a critical assignment where students apply Aristotle's and Cicero's persuasive techniques to a specific advertising…

The Internet, coupled with technology, has enabled institutions of higher learning to offer online distance education classes to a worldwide student body at an increasing rate. In the next 5 years it is estimated that nearly 90% of universities will offer online classes. Unfortunately, the news is not all that good. Students are now cheating at an…

This study examined the relationship of different assignment structures (i.e., teacher-constructed and student-constructed) on the achievement patterns of 6th-grade gifted and advanced students in a Southwest suburban school. Through a descriptive case study design (Berg, 2004; Merriam, 1988), an action research approach (Stringer, 2004) and…

This study investigated the impact of prior knowledge, writing task, and hypertext format on university students' comprehension of multisource hypertext. Fifty-two students categorized as having high or low prior knowledge studied hypertext consisting of seven component texts on the topic of social influence. Some students were given a summary…

Using popular culture in my developmental writing course has prompted me to reconsider what it means to create successful developmental writing assignments. Having slipped into the questionable habit of assuming that removing complexity makes an assignment appropriate for developing writers, I pared down a fairly open-ended "media…

The main purpose of this study was to look at how we used specific writing assignments in our courses to encourage metacognitive reflection in order to increase the learning that takes place. The study also aimed to aid in the development of higher order processing skills through the development of student reflection. The students involved in the…

A case study examined the collaborative experiences of students in an online business writing classroom. The purpose was to examine the same groups of students working on collaborative writing assignments in both a synchronous (real-time) and an asynchronous (non-real-time) discussion forum. This study focused on examining the amount, pattern, and…

This study examined the effect of scaffolding students who learned by designing assignments for a computer simulation on the physics topic of alternating circuits. We compared the students' assignments and the knowledge acquired in a scaffolded group (N = 23) and a non-scaffolded group (N = 19). The scaffold consisted of a Design Sheet that guided…

Instructors of sociology courses strive to teach their students how to "think sociologically" or how to apply a "sociological perspective" to the world. Many creative methods, often framed as "applied" or "active learning," have been created to pursue this goal, but these active learning projects are not perfect solutions. The natural sciences…

The objective of the assignment described here is to allow students to reflect upon and articulate how they have been shaped by their "standpoints" in life. Many times, students are not aware of others' views and cultural upbringing (other than surface-level issues). By examining how Standpoint Theory shapes one's perceptions of their privileges…

I invite and encourage students to take risks in their writing, to engage innovatively with a wide range of genre, to push limits in order to explore creatively how language and discourse are never ossified, but always organic, how language use is integrally and inextricably connected to identity, knowledge, subjectivity, and living. Informed by…

This paper describes writing assignments from a modern algebra course which were used to foster the development of proof-writing skills. Each assignment consists of proofs and mathematical work supposedly written by fictional characters, where the proofs are designed to illustrate common misconceptions, difficult points, and typical writing flaws.…

College science teachers know that students get the most out of class if they have completed the assigned reading. To reinforce this expectation, we ask our introductory physics students to submit a question they had about the reading. In this paper we describe the rationale and logistics of this assignment. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

In 2006-2007, we established a writing exercise in two large first-year biology courses. Overall, our exercise, which consisted of multiple drafts of a 500-word essay, offered students a good introduction to how editorial feedback can improve content and style in scientific writing. We discuss our goals, procedures, outcome, and students'…

This study investigated student and faculty perceptions of their experiences with online learning in dental hygiene Bachelor of Science degree completion programs on the dimensions of: quality of learning, connectedness to the learning environment, technology factors and student satisfaction. The experiences of dental hygiene students who took…